Topic
Friends at the Table is an actual-play podcast that has introduced me to a number of new tabletop systems and storytelling techniques.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
In their second season, COUNTER/weight, an event called the September Incident incites a climactic interstellar war. Present at the September Incident are several cyclopean computer programs and machines called Divines. Each Divine attempts to embody a quality of character in humans.
Our protagonists form a group called the Chime, mercenaries whose political aims are sometimes accompanied by figurative language about ringing bells.
Tools and Scope
While listening to Jack de Quidt’s very evocative score, I was enjoying the leitmotif for the villainous Divine called Rigour. To illustrate the advancing footfalls of an enormous machine, de Quidt lays sleigh bells over a bass drum.
After some sketching on a train ride, I decided I would use Inkscape to create “logos” for several Divines, combining images of bells with illustrations of the Divines’ driving ideals.
The Divines at the September Incident are Liberty and Discovery, Detachment, Voice, and Rigour. A related mech called Apokine is also uncovered during the Incident.
Logos
Detachment! The sometimes-virtue of observing without involvement.
While trying to come up with different types of bell, I looked up at my bike leaning against the wall of the train car
Because the Divine Detachment is distributed in a blockade of satellites, I quickly saw how detaching the striker from my bike bell could form the shape of a satellite dish.
Detachment and Liberty and Discovery use the same small, faded label because they find themselves aligned.
The first agent of the twin Divines Liberty and Discovery was once enthralled to Rigour as a lumberjack. After this, Liberty and Discovery resolves to “cultivate saplings” as a key value.
AuDy, the robot Liberty and Discovery would become millennia later, detaches one of their antennae as a gift, hence the broken stem.
The textured shape of AuDy’s face-panel is inspired by the bianqing.
The Big Bad Evil Guy of the season, Rigour is a cousin of a gray goo, one that works its subjects to the bone.
I combined Rigour’s sleigh bell leitmotif with the imagery of a broken BlueSky dome depicted during the September Incident.
As if the dome weren’t looming enough, I added a ziggurat shape to the implements that I imagine as Rigour’s claws.
The result is also meant to evoke a skull and crossbones. Classic villainy!
The Divine Voice is designed to be influenced by all inhabitants of the planet September. I chose a cowbell to represent a herd, and an intercom to represent an individual’s input.
Unfortunately, Voice comes under the control of Rigour, hence the sinister HAL-9000 glow of the intercom speaker and the looming ziggurat-like shape formed by the shoulders and handle of the bell.
On the next revision, I would like to make the ribbon resemble a waveform.
Rigour and Voice also share a larger, distorted label.
The final mythical mech present at the September Incident is Apokine. The rippled shadows and blue background represent the Atlantean beliefs of Apokine’s creators.
To represent Apokine’s awakening, I hid an image of alarm clock bells and a hammer in the face of a Corinthian helmet, drawn using an adapted Greek meander.